The Other Side of the Tortilla

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Throwback Thursday: Memories from Mexico on an iPhone case!

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It’s no secret that I’m addicted to Instagram. Therefore, it should come as no big surprise that I found a way to show off some of my favorite photos from The Other Side of The Tortilla, my travels in Mexico and other assorted Mexico-related things I’ve found here in Chicago. I’ve been loving the #ThrowbackThursday (or #tbt) hashtag where people post photo memories on Instagram and Twitter and I’ve been playing along when I remember on Thursdays, but I want to make it a more consistent thing.

While trying to figure out some more fun ways to use my Instagram feed, I was super excited to discover Casetagram, a service that lets you create a smartphone case with your Instagram photos. I created this Tortilla-themed phone case for my iPhone and I can’t wait for it to arrive! Some of the places I included photos of from travels to Mexico (from top to bottom): Diego Rivera’s studio in San Angel, a doorway in San Miguel de Allende, the bugambilias I fell in love with at Hacienda Galindo and last, but not least, El Ángel de la Independencia in Mexico City.

Then, of course, I also included some favorite foods, such as guacamole, tacos al pastor, flor de calabaza, buñuelos, conchas, pozole and molletes. I wished there were more spaces to put more of my favorite things and places, but I guess I might just have to make another one!

  • If you were going to make a case for your phone with Casetagram, what photos from Mexico or what Mexican foods would you include on yours? What places or things are so unforgettable to you that you’d want everyone to see?

We’re busy polishing the silver…

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As you may have noticed if you’ve visited theothersideofthetortilla.com over the last few days, things look a little different – and not quite right just yet! Please pardon the digital dust while I polish the site. We’ve switched to new hosting and we’re implementing some great new features for more fun here in the Tortilla Test Kitchen, including a new design and layout and a better commenting system.

In the meantime, if you’d like to view old posts and photos the way they used to look, you can do so by visiting the old site. All of that content has been moved over here but some posts need a little cleaning since they got tarnished in the move. You can still comment here if you like. Any comments left on the old site this week will be ported over to the new site so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

Don’t worry, we’ll be back soon, and we’ll be more brillante than ever before!

    A new, improved Tortilla coming soon!

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    It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted and I wanted to write you all a little note about why. Soon, The Other Side of The Tortilla will relaunch with a better, more interactive design! I’m moving hosting in an effort to better serve all of you and to provide some cool new features that I cannot integrate on my current platform. I promise it will keep the same, clean style that so many of you have written me saying you love so much.

    I’ve been working on a redesign since the beginning of April, and it should be ready to be implemented sometime in the next few weeks. Thanks so much for all your patience and support – I can’t wait to show you the new site! I hope you’ll keep checking back. In the meantime, you can still access all my old posts here. Once the redesign takes effect, all the old posts will be imported to the new site so you’ll still be able to search and find some of your favorite recipes and stories already posted here.

    Hasta pronto,
    Maura

    Ya tenemos 6 meses!

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    I can’t believe last week I passed the six month mark since I began The Other Side of The Tortilla. It feels like only a short time ago that I started contemplating how to share my quest for Mexican culinary and cultural nirvana in the kitchen. Thank you so much to those of you who have become big fans along the way; I appreciate your loyal support, feedback and passing my site on to friends and family via word of mouth (or email…or tweet…or Facebook).

    My goal with the site is not just a personal one to chronicle all I’ve learned from family, friends and cherished cookbooks about traditional Mexican cooking in order to someday pass the wisdom down to my own children; I also want to help educate others about Mexican cuisine and culture. I’m always open to suggestions for improvement or new elements you’d like to see, so please hit me up via the comments or by emailing me by clicking on the contact section to the right if you’d like. I frequently get comments via email in both languages, which I think is so cool. Thanks to all you wonderful readers, I’ve already gotten some great suggestions on how to enhance your experience here on The Other Side of The Tortilla. You can expect to start seeing a little bit of video here and there very soon. One note: I do moderate the comments only for purposes of keeping my site free of spam, but I make a conscious effort to approve legitimate comments as soon as possible so we can have a lively discussion.

    To commemorate this little 6-month milestone anniversary, I created a graphic using words that have commonly appeared in my posts since I started back in August 2009. The more frequently a word appears in posts from the last six months, the larger the font size. I hope you have as much fun looking at it as I have!

    When it’s quiet around here, it can only mean one of two things: I’m either busy in the kitchen or writing and revising new recipes. Lately, I’ve been busy with a bit of both. If you follow me on Twitter, then you already know that I often post photos taken on the fly in the kitchen; if you didn’t, you do now, so head over and follow me there if you’d like some sneak peeks every now and then. Most commonly, people have been telling me I’m making them hungry, so I must be doing my job well, right?

    Here’s what I’m currently working on in the Tortilla Test Kitchen that you can expect to see coming up soon (in no particular order–to keep some element of surprise!):

    • champurrado
    • salsas rojas
    • sopas
    • carnes
    • flan
    • guisados

    Also, I’ve recently been asked to write a guest post about why native foods are such an important element of cultural bonding (both in adult-to-adult and adult-to-kid relationships) at SpanglishBaby.com, a parenting site for raising bilingual kids. I’m very excited to be able to contribute over there and will cross-post my article here on the Tortilla later this month. They found me thanks to someone passing on the word about the blog. I’m also honored to have been mentioned on The Tiki Tiki Blog in their weekly El Buzz section as a blog to watch a few months back and hope to contribute a thing or two over there in the coming months.

    So again, thanks for reading. I hope you will continue to enjoy my adventures in the kitchen and will share the site with a friend or two.

    If you like the wordle image above, you can make your own by going to wordle.net. The custom color palette was created with colors from photographs that appear or are scheduled to appear here on The Tortilla.

    New features coming soon…

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    I’ve recently been working on a special project for The Other Side of The Tortilla that I haven’t told you about yet–some video! I’ve been working on adding in some more cultural elements (which will have a fun new category name that I can’t wait to reveal), and while composing some stories and editing photos I started thinking about how I could teach others about Mexican customs and traditions that go beyond just food. The cuisine ties into a bigger cultural picture, so really, these new cultural elements will complement the regular cooking content of what you already see here.

    Christmas brunch at Tía Annette's (left), café con Rompope (right)

    It started out over the holidays in December while I was visiting Mexico City (which is, in part, why you haven’t seen a December in Mexico City Part II just yet). One of our tías throws a big Christmas brunch for our whole family every year, and this year she moved it up a week so I could attend since I wasn’t in town for very long.
    As with most of my trips, I brought my DSLR camera and a Flip Video along for the ride. I got some great home video style footage of how our family celebrates Christmas with posadas and began thinking how I could share this bit of our culture in a fun and educational way.

    posada navideña 2009
    "Dale, dale, dale, no pierdas el tino..."

    And, like many Mexican families, our Christmas gathering wouldn’t be complete without a piñata…

    I’ve got video footage of both young and old taking their turn trying to break it open! (Here’s a little sneak peek of some of the kids’ action to the right.)

    I’ve been working hard putting something together, editing, including video cuts, still photos and am now recording voice overs and adding a background soundtrack. Right now, I’m in the process of looking for a mariachi band with recorded materials that might be interested in providing some of the soundtrack (so if you know somebody, send them my way).

    Recently, a few people have asked me if I’d ever do cooking video segments. That wasn’t the way I originally envisioned The Other Side of The Tortilla, but as with all ideas, it’s beginning to evolve. I’d appreciate your feedback in the poll below to let me know how you feel about the possibility of seeing some cooking videos here in the future. I’ll close the poll on Sunday, February 28th, so hurry up and vote–there’s a little over a week to get your opinions in. Feel free to also leave any comments below with your thoughts about why you would be interested in seeing some video (…or why not).

    Let me know what you think. As always, thanks for reading. I hope to be able to add new features from time to time to improve your reading and cultural experience here on The Other Side of the Tortilla.

    ¡Adelante!

    Do you want to see cooking video segments from time to time here on The Other Side of The Tortilla? Click here to let me know by voting via TwtPoll.